


behind closed doors

by khirimochi (NekoAisu)



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Arguing, Discussions of slavery, Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood, Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood Spoilers, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Miqo'te (Final Fantasy XIV), Miqo'te Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Miscommunication, Named Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Past Forced Prostitution, Slavery, Specific Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Trauma, idk how to even tag this so everything is covered properly, please read the tags and note, the situation of Yotsuyu's past
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:21:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24400483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NekoAisu/pseuds/khirimochi
Summary: Hien should have never opened his godsdamned mouth.
Relationships: Gosetsu Daito & Hien Rijin, Hien Rijin & Original Character(s), Hien Rijin & Warrior of Light, Jifuya (Final Fantasy XIV) & Yotsuyu goe Brutus, Yotsuyu goe Brutus & Hien Rijin, Yotsuyu goe Brutus & Original Character(s), Yotsuyu goe Brutus & Warrior of Light, Yugiri Mistwalker & Hien Rijin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> as a professional hien appreciator, it is my solemn duty to write him getting chewed out for some bad takes on Yotsuyu's past and the involvement of Jifuya
> 
> please mind the tags and steer clear of this if any of the following topics are triggering to you:  
> Past/Referenced Enslavement  
> Past/Referenced Forced Prostitution  
> Past/Referenced Abuse   
> Past/Referenced Torture (and subsequent recovery)  
> Stormblood Spoilers  
> Me going off about hien's character in this patch being the anathema of his previous characterization  
> Manhandling/Physical threats (ie. grabbing someone by their shirt)  
> Arguments/Arguing

Z’ahir thinks that he doesn’t quite mind committing treason. Princes are overrated. Countries are overrated. The systemic abuse and dismissal of those considered lesser is overrated. Well, overrated isn’t the right word for it. Unacceptable fits a whole lot better. 

Hien, prince of Doma and revolutionary in his own right, should wish he never opened his godsdamned mouth.  _ “I would not presume to defend the life Jifuya led before he joined the Front, nor will I condemn it. Frankly, it is not my place to judge,”  _ he has said. Z’ahir knows his family likely kept all sorts of servants and slaves within the palace and surrounding inner city. He understands that part of being unable to criticize well enough. What he does not understand is how Hien can still point fingers at Yotsuyu and say she casts such a heavy shadow. It is not her villainy that blots out the sun, but that of Doma as a whole. 

The country has its fair share of issues. Ul’dah is much the same. Gridania and Limsa Lominsa, too. Any collection of people large enough to be considered a country will have them. However, it does not excuse the establishment and encouragement of things like slavery, forced prostitution, or the subsequent practice of victim-blaming. It is the direct result of people like Jifuya that Yotsuyu turned out the way she did, but that burden rests just as squarely atop the shoulders of bystanders like Hien.

By saying he does not condemn it, he is supporting it. He does not have to have a perfect past to say that such practices are wrong. His birthright means that he has the power to speak out against it, to  _ change  _ it, and yet he squanders that power! He had said he believes none should have to cower, that the people should not ever be given reason to lose hope, and even fought to rally them all beneath a unified banner for the sake of freedom. 

He had held Fahmi so gently when they recovered him from the Garleans. He had asked after his health so carefully it was like he was worried a single syllable may be reason enough for the Keeper to shatter like glass. He said he would do whatever it took to ensure that the torture Fahmi went through is never again repeated. He hadn’t dismissed the shaking of his hands, the sputtering brokenness of his magic, or the way Fahmi had stayed in the corner of his room and very pointedly did not look up whenever he had visitors. Z’ahir knows he has compassion. He has seen it and knows it to be true. 

Hien is not someone who is hardhearted, but it feels nearly like he’s been blinded by his patriotism. They’re all supposed to be comrades, brothers in arms, and suddenly his trust is sorely tested. Yotsuyu is evil, he says without speaking the exact words. She hurt the Warrior of Light. She crushed the people of Doma. She is a foul creature. 

But, in truth, she was wronged and then brushed aside. It’s the things she chose to do since becoming free (and what is freedom, if still bound within the confines of a tenuous imperial post) that set her apart from people like Z’ahir. She made the choice to perpetuate that abuse. He didn’t, even if unlearning his destructive habits is still a work in progress. Had K’hiri not been there, had she not yanked him free of the clutches of Ul’dah’s elite, Z’ahir knows he would have turned out much the same. 

His blade had been sold, his life tied to it within the arena, and he still wakes up with a heavy feeling around his nose and chin where his muzzle had sat. What Yotsuyu has done is not permissible. What  _ he  _ had done runs too close a parallel for comfort. They both hurt people to get back at those who hurt them─had been stuck between keeping their heads down and toughing it out or fighting back like cornered animals─and the self-defense mechanisms they formed during those days still persist even after being freed. 

He is happy for her, for this strange, blank-slate Tsuyu. Whether it’s the will of the kami or something completely different does not matter. He fully intends to give her the chance K’hiri gave him.

Words roll around in his head for hours following Hien’s comment. There are so many things he wants to say but won’t. Being part of the Resistance means that none of them can risk Jifuya running off with what he knows, but Z’ahir fully intends to make it known that his tolerance for the man is purely conditional. Hien has no such luxury as to escape from his sight once Doma is freed. 

He is to be the reinstated leader of her people and yet can’t take such a simple stance as to discontinue a practice that treats people as if they are chattel. Doma’s past will not be erased, nor should it be, but the fact that Hien allows himself to uphold the practice by not speaking against it is enough to set Z’ahir’s fur on edge. 

It’s late into the night when he steps out for a walk and finds, almost too conveniently, Hien Rijin. There is a noisy little voice in the back of his head that curses the kami and their entire domain for making his entire life so blissfully inconvenient. He is inclined to agree with it. 

Hien notices him and smiles like Z’ahir is supposed to be in a good mood when seeing him. He smiles back even when it pulls uncomfortably on his scars. “It’s late,” he says, meandering over. “What are you doing─”  _ in general, with your life, running a country like this  _ “─up?”

“I could ask the same of you, my friend,” Hien replies. He gestures to the space across from him at the little table within the House of the Fierce. There is a tension to his shoulders Z’ahir is willing to bet is because of Yotsuyu. 

He shrugs, striding over and settling down with a calmness he wishes was not just external. They sit in silence─tense or tired, he cannot say─before Hien sighs. “What is it?”

“I feel I misspoke somewhere, but have no idea what it is that has Gosetsu so cross with me,” he says, frowning. “I will ask that you be frank with me, Z’ahir. Is there something I have done to raise his ire?”

Z’ahir huffs a laugh, tail flicking at the tip, and asks, “Are you dumb?” He doesn’t wait for Hien to reply before barreling on. “You say you don’t know, but I bet you do. It’s about her. Yotsuyu. The same woman you seem determined to hate─”

“I am not determined to _hate_ her.”

“Then you are determined to kill her, if nothing else,” he says, voice sharp where it cuts through the night. “You may not hate her, but you do want to kill her. Your failure is that of your entire country. Killing her feeds into that and it will  _ not  _ absolve you of your mistakes.”

“Then what would you have me do,” Hien replies, visibly upset, “when her face haunts the dreams of Doma’s people?”

“Apologize. Speak out. Use that princely head of yours for more than a second at a time to think about what the  _ hells  _ it is you’re saying about folks like Tsuyu. Like  _ me.” _

Hien startles, brows shooting upward in shock. “You were… ah…”

“You can say it,” he says sharply, face impassive despite his anger. 

“Enslaved.”

Z’ahir smiles, then, and maybe it’s with a little too much teeth to be more than a grimace because Hien looks like he took a bite out of an unripe lemon. “I was a prisoner turned gladiator. Sponsors within Ul’dah effectively buy their chosen champion’s life. Do you think,” he says, pausing in the middle of his sentence to crowd into Hien’s space, “that I should be killed, too?”

“No, I─you are not understanding me, my friend─”

“I am not your friend.”

“Z’ahir, please.”

He reaches across the table and knots a hand in the rich fabric of Hien’s robe and  _ yanks,  _ claws causing runs throughout the embroidery, and speaks quietly enough that Hien has to go quiet to hear him ask, “Do you think I have not made just as many people  _ wretched?  _ That I have not killed because someone held my chain and commanded it? Do you think you have not caused just as much suffering by allowing such practices as enslavement and forced prostitution to thrive within your country?”

“I did not have the power when I was a boy,” Hien argues, hands tense at his sides. He does not have his sword strapped to his hip as is his usual. 

“But you do now. You do and you do not use it.”

He flounders and Z’ahir knows he’s searching for excuses. He waits, still holding Hien far too close to be respectful or anything less than threatening, until he hears the soft patter of feet. His ears swivel toward the sound not even a second before Fahmi peeks around a corner. 

“Y’ weren’t there,” he says, stepping out of the shadows. He fiddles with his hands. “Why’re y’ both up?”

Z’ahir releases Hien and sighs. He knows Fahmi will be upset with him for lying, but he does it anyway. “Just nerves. Liberating Doma and all that.”

“An’ that requires Hien lookin’ like y’ gave him a gut punch?”

“... Yes.”

Fahmi shuffles over and takes both of their hands. He looks better than he has in weeks, but there is still a shadow resting over him like a shroud. Z’ahir stands without him having to ask and tries for a comforting smile. Fahmi manages the barest reply. 

Hien follows suit, though with some hesitance. Fahmi laces their fingers together and does not say a thing the entire way back to their pallets. He is about to lay down on his and attempt to sleep when the Keeper says, “I don’ haveta tell you t’ listen to Ahir. You already know wha’s right in y’r heart.” He curls up, all two-and-some-change films of his tail wrapping around to his front so he can hug it like a very furry pillow, and closes his eyes. 

Hien feels like he’s a broken orchestrion roll when he sighs for what has to be the eighth time in one night. “Thank you, my friend. Rest well.”

And he lays down, closes his eyes, and fails to sleep. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sometimes you just gotta go off about how ooc a canon scene is in relation to a character and then turn it into a nonsensical exploration of projected trauma

Jifuya looks up at him, trembling like someone had been holding a knife to his neck, and Z’ahir thinks that it’s good that he’s terrified. He should be. If he is incapable of remorse, he should at least spend the rest of his life jumping at shadows and plastering bravado over his crimes like a cheap facade. Jifuya explains that he was Yotsuyu’s master before she became an Imperial informant. He says she was a courtesan and that she “worked” in his establishment. The hesitation he carries makes clear exactly what he means. It feels nearly right to curl his lip and flash his teeth like he used to and watch the man curl further into himself when he recounts how Yotsuyu’s father sold her to him. 

“‘Tis said that her atrocities are driven by vengeance. I bear part of the blame for the monster she has become,” he says, eyes full of shame. “Joining the Front was meant to be my atonement.”

“Y’r lookin’ in th’ wrong place,” Fahmi says, looking at him so fixedly he may as well have drilled a hole straight through to Jifuya’s heart. “It’s y’r fault f’r not doin’ better for her. What’s there to atone for, if y’r not ready t’ deal with what y’ chose?” He shuts his mouth quickly thereafter. Z’ahir steps closer and takes his hand, rubbing gentle circles along the back of it. 

“I’m a coward,” Jifuya agrees, shaking his head, “and all I wanted was to escape her wrath.”

“This could have been stopped,” Z’ahir spits, fully aware of how harsh he sounds. “It’s on you that you didn’t do better.”

Jifuya sighs like the whole world has been placed on his shoulders. “Yes. I could have.”

Nobody needs to say that he didn’t, that he should have, even continue the conversation when it’s clear nothing will come of it. They make arrangements for Yotsuyu (now Tsuyu) to be taken care of by someone else. The conversation is brushed under the rug. 

Fahmi looks up at him while waiting for him to finish braiding his hair that evening. He bites his lip, gnawing at it for a long second before asking oh so quietly as to not be heard, “D’you think Hien would hate me, too? If he knew?”

“No,” Z’ahir replies, wrapping a ribbon about the end of the plait. “He’s too partial to you.”

“But if he wasn’t?”

“Maybe.”

Fahmi nods like he was expecting it. “Okay.”

They sit together until long after dinner, silence comforting where it wraps around them. They lay down to sleep together on one pallet, tails twining like they did when they were both kits, and Z’ahir watches Fahmi drift off with a faraway fondness. He can’t find it in him to sleep when there are still so many things bouncing around in his head, but he still tries. 

The kami are not so kind as to grant him respite. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have one (1) fuck to give and it's reserved for fixing bad writing

**Author's Note:**

> no im not done. yeah im love hien when he's done using those princely braincells of his to realize him wanting to kill yotsuyu (and calling her a mistake) is really shitty and not at all the correct way to handle the situation. both that of his own mistakes and that of the choices yotsuyu made independently. 
> 
> hmu on:  
> Twitter [@khirimochi](https://twitter.com/khirimochi) OR [@TheHolyBody (NSFW)](https://twitter.com/TheHolyBody)  
> Tunglr @[Main](https://kiriami.tumblr.com) OR @[FFXIV Imagines](https://ffxivimagines.tumblr.com)


End file.
